Polaris Prize 2012 Short List: SPIN’s Guide to the 10 Key Acts

The prestigious Canadian prize will bestow a $30,000 prize on the artist with the "best album based solely on artistic merit"

After announcing its long list last month, Canada’s Polaris Prize jurors have whittled the pool down to ten native acts whose recent albums deserve short-list status for the $30,000 award that commends each year’s “best album based solely on artistic merit without regard to sales or genre.” When the list was released today, we realized we’ve weighed in on almost all of them, so consider this a SPIN User’s Guide to the 2012 Polaris Prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at Toronto’s Masonic Temple Concert Hall September 24.

Cadence Weapon, Hope in Dirt City: The Alberta rapper struggled to care and so did we.

Cold Specks, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion: Someone sort of like Adele but not quite.

Feist, Metals: We liked, but weren’t bowled over by, Leslie’s fourth record. As SPIN reviewer Garrett Kamps puts it, “[New] voices could learn a thing or two from Feist’s balance of nuance and forthrightness, even if Metals isn’t the keenest example of that alchemy.”

Grimes, Visions: Overall, we liked it, largely because, as reviewer Eric Harvey puts it, the record “displays a young singer developing a relationship with her own voice and the seemingly infinite possibilities for shaping and representing it.”

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, YT//ST: We’ll sheepishly admit we’re relatively new to Yamantaka’s unique breed of gloomy, Kabuki-tinged metal-cum-experimental rock opera (or “noh-wave.” as they call it), but from what we’ve heard (and seen) from the collective, we definitely dig. Besides, they make all their stage costumes themselves, so they could certainly use the cash.

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